Alamo Traces

by Thomas Ricks Lindley

  The Taylor documents place Crockett on the Cibolo Creek on the night of March 3, 1836. The affidavits claim that Crockett was so sick at the time he could not execute his signature on the document. Thus he signed with an “X.” Crockett did suffer from malaria. A sudden attack of the illness can be brought on by extreme stress, which Crockett would have been under while he was on the Cibolo. If that was the case, he could have experienced shaking chills that would have prevented him from writing his name.

  79 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 20; Bennett McNelly affidavit, April 23, 1838, Houston, M & P-TSL; “War News: Texas and Florida,” Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, April 12, 1836; Joseph B. Tatom to Sister, March 10, 1836, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 44-45; C. O. Edwards to John Dollar, July 12, 1881, Oakville, Texas Veterans Association Papers, Box 2N251, CAH.

  Tatom probably obtained his information from a member of the combined March 4 reinforcement, who had returned to Goliad. Tatom, however, incorrectly believed that the addition of fifty soldiers to the Alamo increased the total number of Alamo defenders to 200 men. Tatom’s number seems to be based on the belief that Travis only had 150 men. That number was close to correct on February 23. The 150 figure, however, does not take into account the fourteen men in the hospital, the thirty men who entered with Martin and Smith on March 1, and the thirty men who probably returned to the Alamo from Cibolo Creek on February 24. Thus, the actual Alamo number appears to have been: 150 effectives, plus 14 in the hospital, plus 30 that returned from the Cibolo, and 84 reinforcements, minus 14 Tejanos who departed the Alamo and 7 couriers, which equals 257 total men on March 6.

  The C. O. Edwards letter appears to speak to the March 4 relief effort. In describing the military actions he had been involved in, Edwards wrote: “I was in no noted Battle. I was always out on post or in advance or in [the] rear of the main army and was subject to order at all times. I was in several pretty warm skirmishes. One on the Salado and at the Alamo hill before the capture of the Alamo. And as the Army moved on eastward I was stationed on the Brazos at Fort Bend. . . .” Alamo hill would appear to have been Powder House hill about a half mile due east of the Alamo on the Gonzales road. If that is the case, it would appear that the March 4 reinforcement encountered Mexican patrols on Salado Creek about five miles from the Alamo and at Powder House hill before they were able to swing around to the north to approach the Alamo from the west. A careful search of Texas State Library and General Land Office documents has failed to locate any more data on Edwards.

  80 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 20; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 178. Filisola reported that a group of 32 men from Gonzales entered the Alamo two days before the final assault. The morning of March 4 would have been exactly two days before the March 6 attack. By the time Filisola wrote his book, the “Gonzales Thirty-two” were established as the only reinforcement to enter the Alamo. It appears that Filisola had an informant that reported the March 4 entry, and Filisola wrongly assumed it had to be the group of thirty-two.

  81 “Muster Roll, Capt. Chenoweth’s Co.”; Jesse Badgett interview, April 15, 1836.

  82 “Muster Roll, Captain Thomas H. Breece’s Co”; “A list of votes Received at Refugio Mission by the Volunteers at that point . . . ,”.; February 1, 1836, and San Patricio voting list, February 1, 1836, Election Returns, TSL; Alamo voting list, February 1, 1836; Conrad Eigenauer pay document for death at Alamo on March 6, 1836, May 29, 1838, Houston, AMC-TSL; Conrad Eigenauer Court of Claims file, C-002495, GLO; Robert Musselman, Thomas P. Hutchinson, and John J. Baugh affidavit, December 29, 1835, in Francis William Jackson file, AMC-TSL; Joseph H. Barnard, “A List of the Men under the Command of Col. J. W. Fannin at Goliad in March 1836, corrected from the list published in the Telegraph of Nov. 9, 1836,” Joseph H. Barnard Papers, CAH.

  The names of these ten men from the original Greys company do not appear on the February 1 Alamo voting list, which shows they were not members of the Bexar garrison as of that date. Eigenauer voted at Refugio. Stephen Dennison voted at San Patricio.

  There is one source that reports Eigenauer was wounded on March 19, 1836, at the battle of Coleto and died that night. That claim comes from Hermann Ehrenberg’s Texas Und Seine Revolution, a memoir of the Texas war, published in Germany in 1843. Ehrenberg had been a member of the Greys. After the unit broke up, he joined the Mobile Greys. Ehrenberg’s report of Eigneauer’s death is suspect because it claims that Ehrenberg did not know Eigenauer until he discovered him dying during the night of March 19, 1836, on the Coleto battleground. The truth is they traveled together from New Orleans to the siege and storming of Bexar in 1835, and both voted in the February 1 election at Refugio. Also, Barnard, one of Fannin’s doctors, did not identify Eigenauer as one of the men wounded on March 19.

  Ehrenberg’s chapter on Fannin’s activities during the Alamo siege in late February and early March is lacking in data that Ehrenberg should have known. His Alamo chapter is best described as lurid fiction.

  Ehrenberg may have been one of the men who joined the mounted force under the command of Chenoweth and De Sauque that Fannin sent to the Alamo. Ehrenberg’s obituary, apparently written by his close friend and business partner Samuel Peter Heintzelman (James E. Crisp, “In Pursuit of Herman Ehrenberg: A Research Adventure,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, CII: 435), which appeared in the New York Times, January 10, 1867, reported that Ehrenberg had been “the only survivor of the Fannin Massacre at the Alamo.” If Ehrenberg was part of Fannin’s reinforcement of the Alamo, he was not the only survivor of that action, but he may have been at the time of his death.

  83 Muster Roll, Capt. Chenoweth’s Co.; Alamo voting list, February 1, 1836; John Chenoweth affidavit, May 3, 1837, Brazoria, Samuel M. Edwards Probate, Brazoria County Probate Records, Brazoria, Texas; Refugio voting list, February 1, 1836; San Patricio voting list, February 1, 1836; Kevin R. Young, Texas Forgotten Heroes (Goliad: Goliad County Historical Commission, 1986).

  The Chenoweth muster roll identifies these men as having been killed. An inspection of the Goliad list shows they were not killed while with Fannin’s command at Goliad. And given that the company rode to the Alamo and later fell back to Gonzales, the only action in which they could have been killed was in their reinforcement of the Alamo or the fall of the Alamo on March 6. William Badgett, who is listed as not being killed, Adolf A. Petrasweiz, W. H. Sanders, and William Hunter, who are listed as killed, all voted at Refugio on February 1. Thus, the dead men were not part of the Alamo on February 1, 1836.

  Also, Samuel M. Edwards is identified as having died with Fannin at Goliad. Nevertheless, Chenoweth first identified Edwards as having died with Fannin, then he crossed that out and wrote that Edwards had died at the “Alimo.”

  84 “A List of the Gonzales Ranging Company . . . ,” February 23, 1836; Sowell, Early Settlers, 9-10; George B. Kimbell pay certificate, November 29, 1839; James George pay certificate, January 15, 1839; Thomas R. Jackson pay certificate, March 4, 1840; Horce Eggleson affidavit, January 3, 1841, probate number 21, Gonzales County probate records, Archives, Gonzales County Courthouse, Gonzales, Texas; James Taylor and Edward Taylor affidavit, March 3, 1836; J. C. Taylor affidavit, September 6, 1890, George Taylor affidavit, February 2, 1836 and J. C. Taylor, August 7, 1890; James Taylor, Edward Taylor, and William Taylor affidavit, March 3, 1836; Petition in regard to the deaths of brothers James and William George at the Alamo, n.d., Bexar, and Interrogation of Benjamin McCulloch, n.d., Bexar, Court of Claims file, C-3103, GLO. In total, this list is a best guess compilation based on the sources. Some of the men may have entered the Alamo on March 1 with John W. Smith and Albert Martin.

  85 Alamo voting list, February 1, 1836; Erath, “Memoirs of Major George Bernard Erath,” 231; Merret and Saul statement, July 1838; Thomson and Pattillo to Robinson, February 26, 1836. The names on this list do not appear on the February 1 Alamo voting list. Thus, it appears they entered the Alamo after that date. While it is not certain they rode to the Alamo with Captain J. J. Tu
mlinson’s ranger company, it is the most likely method of entry for them.

  86 Travis to Convention, March 3, 1836; Candelario Villanueva Deposition, August 26, 1859, Matovina, The Alamo Remembered, 35; James L. Thuchearz to William Steele, February 6, 1875, San Antonio, Adjutant General Correspondence, TSL.

  On March 3 Travis wrote that only three San Antonio Mexican-Texians were in the Alamo. Speculation suggests the three were probably Antonio Fuentes, Gregorio Esparza, and Toribio Losoya. Esparza and Losoya would have remained with their families. Fuentes appears to have been aligned with Bowie, not Seguin. Enrique Esparza, Gregorio’s son, later reported that he had seen Fuentes in the fort. Therefore, it is most credible that if more than three Tejanos died in the Alamo, they entered with the March 4 relief. Also, some of these men may have been in the Alamo and left during the siege, only to return with Seguin and Crockett.

  87 Nacogdoches Enlistments, Muster Roll book, 114-115; Forbes to Robinson, January 12, 1836; Townsend Receipt, February 9, 1836; Robinson to Houston, February 14, 1836; “Gilmore unit members agreement with Acting-Governor Robinson and Council,” [February 16, 1836?]; William Gilmore affidavit, April 12, 1859, Giles County, Tennessee, John W. Thomson (Thompson) file, Court of Claims file, GLO; Williams “A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo,” 291. Williams concluded that: “It is possible that George Olamio was an Alamo victim.” In this case Williams was probably right. At that time she was not aware of the total evidence indicating that a portion of the Gilmore company took part in a reinforcement of the Alamo.

  88 “A List of the names of Volunteers who were admitted as Colonists in San Patricio – February 1836 under the Command of Col. Johnson, Grant, Cooke, and Burk,” San Patricio Colonists file, M & P-TSL; Alamo voting list, February 1, 1836; Francis H. Gray certificate number 837, June 6, 1851, in “Exhibit of all the Bounty, Donation, and Headright Certificates issued to administrators since the establishment of Adjutant General by an act of the Legislature of 1846”; Francis H. Gray, Robertson Bounty and Donation file, Number 573, GLO.

  89 “Connel O’Donnel Kelly” account, Day, compiler, The Texas Almanac 1857-1873, 600; Ramirez y Sesma to Santa Anna, March 15, 1836. Ramirez y Sesma on arriving at the Cibolo crossing found evidence that a large force had been assembled at the ford. He even found horse equipment that had the name of Alamo defender Richard Storr on the items.

  90 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 20.

  91 Ibid.

  92 John S. Brooks to James Hagarty, March 9, 1836, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 31; Travis to Convention, March 3, 1836; Almonte, “Private Journal,” 22; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 149-152.

  93 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 21; Ignacio Berrospe military service records, XI/111/4-782, p. 100, Cancelados, Archivo Historico of Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional, Mexico City, from Jack Jackson’s research notes, July 2000. Mr. Jackson was kind enough to share his research with this investigator.

  94 John W. Smith and Nathaniel Lewis testimony for James L. Ewing heirs, first class headright land grant certificate 475, March 30, 1838, Finley Ewing Jr. Papers, DRT Library, Alamo. The belief that Smith encountered the remaining members of the relief force is speculation based on the belief they returned to the Cibolo Creek ford on the Gonzales road.

  95 Jesse Billingsley to L. C. Cunningham, March 4, 1836, Gonzales, L. C. Cunningham file, AMC-TSL; J. C. Neill affidavit, March 4, 1836, Gonzales, Joseph S. Martin file, AMC-TSL; J. C. Neill affidavit, March 3, 1836, Gonzales, A. Matthews file, AMC-TSL; J. C. Neill affidavit, December 7, 1839, Austin, Samuel Williams file, AMC-TSL; J. C. Neill affidavit, November 21, 1837, Houston, Joseph D. Clements file, AMC-TSL.

  96 Joseph D. Clements affidavit, November 22, 1837, Joseph D. Clements file, AMC-TSL; W. D. Grady petition, M & P-TSL.

  97 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 22.

  98 Sowell, Early Settlers, 9. That Highsmith returned to the Alamo on March 5 is speculation based on the evidence. It is possible he returned on March 6.

  99 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 22-23; Santa Anna Order, March 5, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 518-519.

  100 Gray to ______, March 11, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 48-49; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 176-177; Nacogdoches Meeting, March 26, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IX: 159-161; “Testimony of Mrs. Hannig,” September 23, 1876; Mrs. James McKeever to W. P. Hardeman, July 25, 1893, Houston, Alamo Papers, Box 2-23/591, TSL; extract from Miss Louise Alsbury’s DRT membership application, Alamo Papers.

  The Nacogdoches document reports: “. . . during a temporary suspension of the bombardment they [Alamo defenders] sought repose the enemy became apprized of their situation by the supposed treachery of a Mexican in the Fort. . . .” Hannig claimed that Mrs. Alsbury departed the Alamo “about two days before the assault,” and betrayed the garrison. McKeever claimed that Alsbury had been “taken from the Alamo under a flag of truce the day before the Fort was besieged by the Mexicans.” Louise Alsbury reported that Alsbury “was in the Alamo until the day before the fort was stormed by the Mexicans, when she was taken out by Santa Anna under a flag of truce at the request of her father. Most likely, Hannig (Dickinson) was not aware that Alsbury had returned to the Alamo. Also, it is unbelievable that Alsbury would have left her infant son and her sister in the Alamo. The alleged betrayal seems unlikely as Mrs. Alsbury returned to the Alamo and witnessed the March 6 assault.

  101 Filisola, Memoirs, II: 176-177.

  102 Robert H. Davis, “Bob Davis Uncovers an Untold Story About the Alamo,” [newspaper unknown], February 28, 1932, James L. Allen file, DRT Library; Mrs. B. N. Pittman to E. C. Baker, April 4, 1932, Hochheim, Amelia W. Williams Papers, Box 2N493, CAH; Brooks to Hagarty, March 9, 1836.

  The claim that Allen rode bareback is suspicious because there were probably close to one hundred horses and sets of horse gear in the Alamo when he left. Also, Allen was not a teenage boy as many accounts claim. He was a twenty-one-year-old adult.

  103 Filisola, Memoirs, II: 176-177; Travis to Convention, March 3, 1836; Jesse Badgett interview, April 15, 1836; Nacogdoches Meeting, March 26, 1836, 159-161. The Nacogdoches report claims that each Alamo defender had from five to ten loaded weapons on the morning of March 6.

  104 Telegraph and Texas Register, San Felipe, March 12, 1836; J. H. Kuykendall, “J. H. Kuykendall’s Recollections of the [San Jacinto] Campaign,” in Dr. Eugene C. Barker, The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, IV: 292.

  105 Filisola, Memoirs, II: 149-152; “Testimony of Mrs. Hannig,” September 23, 1876; Santa Anna Order, March 5, 1836; Almonte, “Private Journal,” 22-23; Thomas Ricks Lindley, “Storming the Alamo Walls,” The Alamo Journal, June 2000; Thomas Ricks Lindley, “At the Alamo Walls Again,” The Alamo Journal, December 2000. This investigator’s two Journal articles offer an analysis of the evidence that speaks to the March attack.

  106 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 23; General Juan de Andrade report in Filisola, Memoirs, II: 178; Colonel Pedro Ampudia’s “Inventory of Artillery, munitions, and other weapons captured at the fall of the Alamo,” March 6, 1836, number 39, XI/481.3/1655, Secretria de la Defensa Nacional, Mexico City. See Chapter Eight of this book for the most accurate analysis of the number of Mexican dead and wounded at the Alamo.

  107 Bastian interview, Brown, Indian Wars, 138. Bastian confused Gonzales with Goliad, but given the time that had passed since the fall of the Alamo and his interview, that is not an unreasonable mistake.

  108 De la Teja, A Revolution Remembered, 79-80; Bennett McNelly affidavit, April 23, 1838; John Chenoweth affidavit, January 2, 1841, M & P-TSL; Juan Rodriquiz affidavit, October 24, 1874, San Antonio, and Juan N. Seguin affidavit, October 28, 1874, San Antonio, Juan N. Rodriquiz file, PC-TSL.

  Seguin, in his 1858 memoir, claimed that, after his arrival at Gonzales after the fall of the Alamo, General Sam Houston sent Captain Salvador Flores and twenty-five men to the San Antonio River ranches to protect the inhabitants from Indian attack. Whereas, Rodriquiz, Seguin’s ord
erly, claimed that Seguin sent him, Juan Jose Flores, and anther man named Guillermo back to the Seguin ranch to protect the Seguin family and ranch. Rodriquiz further claimed he remained at the Seguin ranch on that duty until October 1836. Seguin’s affidavit supports Rodriquiz’s claims. There is no evidence from Sam Houston that verifies Seguin’s claim that Houston had sent twenty-six men to protect the ranches.

  Jose Alemeda, however, claimed in his Republic of Texas pension application that he was one of twenty men, under Salvador Flores, that Seguin sent from Gonzales to evacuate the Tejano ranches. Francisco Miranda and Mateo Cassillas also claimed in their pension applications that they were members of the unit sent to escort the Tejano families to the east.

  The Tejano families would have probably used the Contraband road that ran from the mouth of Cibolo Creek to the road’s junction with the Gonzales/Bexar road at Castleman’s home on Sandies Creek.

  109 Moseley Baker to John R. Jones, Thomas Gray, William Pettus, March 8, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 22-23; “Connel O’Donnel Kelly” account, Day, compiler, The Texas Almanac 1857-1873, 600.

  110 De la Teja, A Revolution Remembered, 79-80; Bennett McNelly affidavit, April 23, 1838; John Chenoweth affidavit, January 2, 1841, M & P-TSL.

  111 “Later – San Antonio Retaken and the Garrison Massacred,” The Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, March 29, 1836.

  112 Barsena et al. deposition, March 11, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 45-46; Captain John Bird affidavit, November 29, 1837, San Felipe, and John G. King pay certificate, January 15, 1839, John G. King file, AMC-TSL. King was paid for military service from February 24, 1836, to March 6, 1836, as a member of Major R. M. Williamson’s command.